Monday, 24 August 2015

The Time Patrol In The Draka Timeline

It would be easy enough to synthesize Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series with SM Stirling's Draka series:

for whatever reason, Manson Everard travels from 1990 to 1776 or earlier;

in 1779, a random fluctuation in space-time-energy generates the Draka timeline;

returning to 1990, Manse finds himself in the wrong timeline, investigates and locates the point of divergence in 1779;

traveling back to that divergence point, he rectifies the timeline;

the Draka live out their lives in their timeline, neither knowing nor needing to care about any other timeline;

this could be just one story in a themed anthology - the Time Patrol in other sf series.

Must the Patrol always succeed in restoring its preferred timeline? Not necessarily, although the tone of the series is that the Patrol does always succeed. Dominic Flandry knows that the Terran Empire will fall whereas Manse Everard hopes and believes that the Time Patrol will not fail and that history will always lead to the Danellians.